There are only ten libraries in the country where teenagers have the opportunity to have structured conversations with other teens about real-life issues and topics. Teens at Liberty have the privilege to access one of these libraries at the North Liberty Public Library.
The community conversations are possible through a grant from Cortico and the MIT Center for Constructive Communication and collaboration with PBS Frontline. The North Liberty Library originally applied for the grant in September 2025 and was accepted through an extensive application and interview process.
Nick Shimmin (he/him), Adult Service Librarian at the North Liberty Library, explains where the idea for the project stemmed from.
“One of the things I got into a couple of years ago was community conversations, providing people the opportunity to talk with one another about things they find important. [Teen Community Conversations] came up, and I thought it was interesting,” Shimmin said.
The adult conversations have had a wide range of topics, from elections to how to be good neighbors. The North Liberty Library wanted to provide opportunities for teens aged 14-19 to have productive and safe conversations about things important to them.
The teen conversations usually have around four to eight people, and they are led by the youth fellow for the project, Allie Honz, who is a student at the University of Iowa. Issues discussed are up to the teens attending the conversation.
“The idea of the project is that we’ll have a series of five to ten conversations, and that can be on whatever topic that the participants feel is interesting. We’ve had people talk about school, work, stress, immigration, social media, artificial intelligence, just a wide range of things,” Shimmin said.
One of the many missions of the project is to collect data on communication. The grant from Cortico and the MIT Center for Constructive Communication is collecting data from these conversations being held across the country. They are trying to identify the general themes of conversations and promote teen dialogue.
PBS Frontline is also a part of the project by promoting the conversations and sharing some of the highlights.
The project is not only helpful for companies to make sense of what teens are interested in communicating about, but it also provides a welcoming atmosphere for teens to talk about the things that matter to them. Shimmin explains his personal connection and motivation to the project.
“In general, my mission is to be able to provide people with conversations. You really get the sense when you have these people that don’t really have the opportunity to talk about what matters to them in a safe, structured environment, just being able to provide that is really cool,” Shimmin said.
Since each conversation has an audio recording, the North Liberty Library is able to pull quotes that stand out and publish them on its website.
“It’s been super fascinating to hear what everyone has to say, and then going back through you find and pick out things you didn’t notice originally,” Shimmin said.
The conversation times usually last anywhere from one hour to an hour and a half. The participants can talk freely about their opinions without an adult joining in, and they have access to a supervisor to the conversations to keep things moving and prevent participants from talking over each other. There are guidelines put in place at the beginning of the conversations in order to inform participants and get everyone on the same page.
Shimmin expresses how the conversations foster a safe environment for teens.
“It is fairly enjoyable, since I’m not actually a part of them, it honestly kills me that I don’t get to talk as well, but it’s been very cool. Everyone’s been very respectful. We haven’t had any arguments at all, which has been really cool.” Shimmin said.
Signing up to participate in a conversation is fairly easy, keeping the conversations accessible to all teens in the community. Teens who are interested in participating should visit the North Liberty Library website and fill out the teen dialogue form.
Shimmin notes that the conversations are open to every teen in the community.
“I think we’ve hit every school in the Iowa City area. We’ve had City High, Tate, West, Kirkwood, Liberty and Clear Creek Amana as well. We’ve really had participants from all walks of life and backgrounds. It’s been really cool,” Shimmin said.
It can be difficult for teenagers to attempt to express how they feel about issues in their lives in a group setting, but the teen dialogue program is working to help teens gain confidence in these areas.
“There’s really no prep needed. We are only interested in the cool highlights, and that’s what people are interested in as well,” Shimmin said. “We don’t put out the whole conversation online; we can also remove something if someone is having second thoughts about something.”
The grant ends in June, but interested teenagers still have the opportunity to sign up on the North Liberty Library website. The library offers $20 gift cards to all past and future participants in order to incentivize participation. To see highlights from previous conversations, visit https://northlibertylibrary.org/teendialogue/.
Shimmin shares the future goals of the project and explains the honor of being selected as one of the ten libraries in the project.
“We’ll have all the conversations done in June. I would love to have more, just because I find it’s something that I find rewarding just being able to offer that experience to everyone,“ Shimmin said. “I would’ve never expected to get this [grant]. We’re relatively small and usually get surpassed and looked over for this type of project. We’ve been told that we are one of the foremost libraries in terms of offering community and connection this way.”
